Mikey watched fretfully from the corner of his eye as his brother sat on the sleek leather couch Alicia had picked out for their apartment with a lime green notebook balanced on his knees and a pencil between his lips. This is all he's done for three days--and he didn't have the heart to ask Gerard to go to his own house. He didn't want Gerard to be alone so soon after their tour had ended. Who was going to do his laundry and make sure he didn't disappear into one of the notebooks he always carted around?

Mikey swirled his spoon around the bowl of Count Chocula he was eating, his mind still on his dilemma with Gerard. He watched the marshmallows sink into the cold depths of milk and bounce up buoyantly a few dozen times until it hit him.

That was Gerard's reaction to his little brother's cure for his 'horrible disease'. He didn't understand what was so bad about being single. Mikey was married, and he didn't seem all that--hell, who was he kidding, the little twerp had a hot wife, of course he was thrilled. But Gerard wasn't in any hurry to find a girlfriend right now. He'd just began work on his second comic with Dark Horse, and he didn't have time for girls. He hardly had time for himself anymore, and there was no way in hell he could maintain a relationship on top of all of that. He had trouble keeping relationships when he didn't have anything going on.

"Aw, come on Gerard, tell me it isn't a great idea! I don't even think they know English, so you can be a total recluse and just call her out for sex and cooking and remedial shit like that." Without waiting for an answer from his brother, Mikey skipped off into his living room and sat in front of his computer, turning it on gleefully.

Gerard groaned, wishing he had never visited Mikey in the first place. A phone call would have been just as good! A simple 'yeah, I'm still alive' would have sufficed, all he needed to know was that his baby brother hadn't killed himself yet. And that was purely so their mom didn't go off in a fit and blame the eldest child for not taking care of her baby, even though they lived in different states now.

He ran after his brother after a slight pause, reflecting on his bad fortune that Mikey saw the ad in Fangoria. What the hell was Fangoria doing advertising something like that? Sure all its readers were nerds who probably needed help getting dates, but mail order brides? Seriously? The only people reading those ads were fourteen year old boys with acne-sprinkled faces and soft doughy bodies who weren't in any need to get married.

"Mikey, get off of that right now! There is no way in hell I am buying a mail-order bride!"

"Well, I'll buy her for you. Think of it as an early Flag Day present. See, look, they only cost $150 dollars." Mikey pointed to the screen that was flashing Male Order Brides only $150!! (prices may vary).

Gerard buried his face in his hands and let out a muffled shriek.

*

When his phone, flashing and playing his 'Manthem' ringtone at one o'clock in the fucking morning, woke him up, Gerard had a malicious desire to chuck his phone out the window and never be heard from again. He knew just who it was calling him--he had personalized ringtones for everyone, and he put Mikey under 'Manthem' and Frank under 'Today' to piss them both off.

"This had better be a life or death situation, Michael, otherwise--"

He didn't get very far in threatening his brother, because Mikey's eager voice on the other end drowned out his promises of mortal harm and embarrassing stories he could tell Alicia.

"Gee!!! Remember when I ordered that mail-order bride??"

Gerard closed his eyes slowly, disbelievingly, screaming 'No' over and over in his head.

"No, Mikey, I do not, and if you ever mention it again, I'll make sure I'll never become an uncle. And, if you didn't get my meaning with that clever little threat, I'll chop your balls off and give them to some sick and twisted fan girl." He squinted his eyes at the phone in his hand, still debating the 'throw it out the window' plan. He can just get another phone--hey, he could even get a Chocolate like he wanted instead of the gay pink Razr he was stuck with.

"No you won't, liar. And, anyway, your wife is at my house right now, and I suggest you get your newlywed arse over here soon."

"Please tell me you're kidding." He held on to that last hope that this was something Mikey would do, call him up in the middle of the night with some made up story to piss him off. Why would Mikey actually order a bride for Gerard anyway?

"Nope, sorry, Gee. You have a wife now, and a pretty one, at that."

Gerard groaned, banging the back of his head into the headboard. "Is that some subtle way of saying she's a complete dog?"

Finally, some good, Gerard thought. He wasn't going to have to talk with her! Maybe this will work out after all. Maybe he'll be able to convince people she's just a friend staying with him. No one will have to know that his idiot brother thought he was so desperate that he bought him a wife.

*

"So...um.."

Gerard was at a loss for words as he tossed his duffel bag on Mikey's couch and glanced at the boy who was sitting in the recliner, picking at his shirt and biting on his bottom lip. Mikey stood at the doorway with an insane grin plastered on his mouth, resisting the urge to jump up and down and squeal like a little girl because this was just too good. After 27 years of knowing his brother, he still wasn't completely sure what his sexuality was--all the 'Frerard' stuff confused him, even--but this was a sure fire way to find out.

At first, when the lanky, sparkly boy showed up on his doorstep, Mikey was confused, was about to punch this guy's lights out if he was here for Alicia, but then he handed Mikey a little piece of paper that showed his credit card order and had a list of little things that he might need to know. His name was Wil--spelled wiL, actually, but Mikey chocked that up to the language barrier-he was from Fieux, France, and didn't speak English. He showed up in a ratty white David Bowie T-shirt, leather pants, and pink makeup smeared from his cheekbones to his eyes. A black messenger bag was slung around his shoulders, and a neon green boa was peeking out of one of the pockets. His dark hair hung limp in front of his face, he had the whole don't-give-a-shit look down perfectly.

He was perfect for Gerard! He was French, and everyone knew that Gerard liked to pretend that he could speak French, and he came with his own boa!

Mikey watched as his brother struggled for some sort of coherent speech. Gerard turned, raised a finger, and opened his mouth.

"Mikey, what the hell?" he whispered fervently, leaning in like he was afraid to let the other boy hear him.

"This is your wife, Gee. His name's wiL, and he only speaks French. Isn't he pretty?" Mikey looked past his brother to wiL, to where he still sat half-heartedly watching Scooby Doo. WiL looked up, feeling eyes on him, and smiled at Mikey. He liked Mikey, he was the one to take him away from the brothel, and his wife was really nice and let him watch as she cooked.

Gerard blinked. "Mikey, I didn't know you were gay. Really, I thought that since you married a girl-"

"I'm not gay, but he is pretty. Hey, Wil, c'mere," he called softly. WiL, broke out of his trance that consisted of wondering why the dog on the TV was talking, pushed himself out of the squishy chair he sat in and padded warily over to Mikey and the other boy he didn't know. He squeezed himself into Mikey's side, knowing that it was safe there. Mikey laid his hand on top of wiL's head and smiled at Gerard.

"WiL," he said slowly, "this is my brother, Gerard."

WiL tilted his head to the side and looked up at Mikey. "Quoi?"

He turned his doleful gaze on Gerard, and seeing his The Cure shirt and eyeliner, decided that he was okay. He wasn't here to take him back to France. He let his hand slip from where it had been curled in the front of Mikey's shirt to touch Gerard's arm.

"Ger-ard," he stated plainly in his broken accent, over-stressing the first syllable of the name and realizing it soon after. "Merde..." he muttered as he worked to say it right in his head to see how it went. Gerard.

Now, what was the word Mikey taught him to say in greeting?

"Ce que bonjour?" He tilted his head up to Mikey, hoping he understood him.

"'Hello'," Mikey supplied. WiL's eyes lit up and he beamed, nodding his head jovially.

"Oui!" He turned back to Gerard with an accomplished smile on his face. "Hello, Gerard." He lifted his arm in a little wave.

"...Hello," Gerard said back awkwardly. He didn't know what else to say. In all his years of sitting alone in his room and imagining what he would say in weird conversations like this, he never actually imagined this exact situation. "Um...Mikey, what am I supposed to do?"

"Take him with you, Gee. Cause technically, he's yours."

Gerard threw his hands up into the air. "But I don't know French! I don't know how to communicate with him!"

At Gerard's outburst, wiL squeaked and shrank back into Mikey's side, hiding his face against his shoulder, worried that he did something wrong. Mikey frowned and slapped his brother on the arm.

"Gerard, don't yell. You scared him." Mikey turned his attention back to wiL, smoothing his hair down and muttering soothing little nothing-words until he popped his head back up and smiled shyly. Mikey smiled back and patted his back.

Gerard regarded the whole exchange with disgust, rolling his eyes and rethinking his whole outlook on his supposedly straight brother who was cuddling his supposed wife. Yeah. And what was he supposed to do with wiL anyway? He didn't know what to feed him, and he didn't know how to talk to him, and while he was cute and endearing and just had that kinky lost puppy thing going on, Gerard wasn't gay.

Gerard looked down at the floor and muttered an apology. Then, he drug up in the recesses of his brain the way to say 'I'm sorry' in French. He was one of those people who liked to know a few phrases in a few languages just to feel like an intellectual. In French, he knew how to say 'I'm sorry', 'hello', 'goodbye', 'I love you', and 'Is that a hairpiece?'. The last one was just out of curiosity after he watched a movie where all the guys had white powder wigs.

"Er, je suis pardon," he muttered awkwardly. His hand tangled itself in the back of his black messy hair and it took alot not to rip it out. Apologizing was always horrible for him, whether it was in another language or not.

He watched wiL turn his grin to him, and honestly, it made his insides boil. He didn't know yet whether that was a good thing or not.

"Bien."

Mikey nodded like he knew all was right in the world and it was all his doing. "See? Perfect. Now...wiL, you're going to be living with Gerard, okay?"

"Quoi?" wiL chirped again.

Mikey bit the side of his lip and scrunched his face up. "Um..." His face lit up and he scrambled off into another room, limbs flying, leaving Gerard alone with wiL.

It was awkward on Gerard's behalf, knowing that this boy was going to be living with him, and not knowing the first thing about him. He knew he liked David Bowie, and that was amazing, and he had good taste in makeup, but...was that enough for them to be able to get along? Was that enough to break the language barrier and make this bearable?

*

Mikey returned a long while later, red-faced and muttering an apology about how he couldn't find what he was looking for. He held up a piece of paper to wiL and pointed to Gerard. The paper was his credit card statement, and Mikey was hoping wiL would understand that he belonged to Gerard through some weird-ass sign language. WiL frowned at the paper, recognizing it but clearly not understanding.